Bryan Singer Says 'X-Men: Apocalypse' Will Take Place in 1980s

March 15, 2014 (3:14 am) GMT

The director reveals the timeline and promises more mass destruction when discussing what to expect in 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' sequel.

Bryan Singer spilled the beans on "X-Men: Apocalypse", the follow-up to "X-Men: Days of Future Past". He said they would go back to the past, "We're going to deal with the notion of ancient mutants - the fact they were born and existed thousands of years ago."

"But it'll be a contemporary movie," the director added in an interview with Total Film, before giving a specific timeline, "Well, it'll take place in the '80s... The '80s is a period now - it's hard for me to believe that!"

He went on, " 'Apocalypse' will have more of the mass destruction that 'X-Men' films, to date, have not relied upon. There's definitely now a character and a story that allow room for that kind of spectacle... I don't want to get too specific, but we'll introduce familiar characters in a younger time. That'll be fun to show the audience. I call these movies in-between-quels. It's a mind-f*** sometimes in terms of where things fall in the timeline!"

"It all stems back to when I did [the first] X-Men," he continued. "You always want to know where a character's going to go, what their future's going be like. You can always sequelize. But on that film I also had actors asking 'Who am I? Where did my character come from?' So as a director you always need a backstory to give your actors."

"It may not be the right backstory, but it's one you can give the actor to help them understand their character. These prequels are really exciting for me because they give me a chance to explore ideas I came up with more than a decade ago."

"Days of Future Past" is scheduled to be released in the U.S. on May 23. A number of new mutants like Bishop, Sunspot and Blink are added to the lineup, joining the franchise's regular like Wolverine, Mystique, Beast, Magneto and Storm.

"Apocalypse" will follow on May 27, 2016. Singer is working on the script with "Days of Future Past" writer Simon Kinberg and "X-Men 2" scribes Dan Harris and Michael Dougherty.